Pandora's Box
by sun.ming
Summary: ll promises should be made to be kept. Some promises are made to be broken. But one promise was made to never be broken, but no longer wanted to be kept.


_~ Spring ~_

We were young... young and barely alive. I can't remember those days... but I remember your smile... the smile that was once filled with more warmth than the ambition in your eyes. You were always achingly warm... the way your hand always held onto mine yet grew to always letting it go. Back then, I was still naive enough to believe you would always return.

You were the one that gave me a reason to live... that gave me life that day when I thought it was already over... as if I was reborn after the nightmares were finished.

_... Your birthday from now on will be the day we met..._

It was my third birthday with you, when you gave me the gift of this charm that was attached with a bell at the bottom. When I shook it, it made a crisp tinkering sound as if it was a song for help. You smiled when I told you that.

"If I'm not by your side... just use that to call me and I'll come to you."

Weeks later, I tried. In the tiny shack by myself, I stared at the open door, dangling the charm two feet away from my body, and waited. I waited when the sun rose. I waited when the sun fell. I waited until I could no longer count the days as if they mattered. I still waited.

You had promised me... you promised that you would always return... but years and years had gone by, and I had eventually learned that even the most simple of all promises, can become meaningless if there was never any intention on keeping it in the first place.

_~ Summer ~_

It was a hot summer day... with clothes shed and flesh dressed with red. I was flushing, I was shaking, but I wasn't nervous. I was afraid. I was afraid the moment I released you, you would be gone. So I clung onto you, skin against skin, heat against heat, as we pushed against one another. I dug my nails into your back; you never winced, but the way your lips parted so close to mine... the way your breaths hitched whenever my muscles clenched... I could see it all in the features on your emotionless face.

Your hand cupped my chin, tilted my head back to meet your lips. I could feel the way your lips trembled so desperately against mine. The way your lips crashed against mine, teeth bumped together, and I couldn't help but let out a raspy laugh from our clumsy kiss.

It was then, that I saw it again. That smile that always graced your features, yet with a warmth that once disappeared into the past as if buried beneath all of the memories to never be found again. It was breathtaking.

I curled my arms even more tightly around you, as if that would be enough to anchor you to me. Our bodies were impossibly close, with no space yet worlds in-between, as our bodies moved to the rhythm of our hearts. I had to shut my eyes tightly, with the heat of our bodies still pressed against one another so desperately, with every inch of flesh touching... and my body ached for it. It ached for more... more of you... more of your warmth... more of your crushing weight to tell me this isn't all a dream.

I needed that promise again.

... _Call for me...and I promise I'll return..._

"Rangiku..." Your voice was rough and the tremors of your body felt real against me. It was a strangled, yet desperate sounding voice... a voice I could barely recognize as belonging solely to you... and I let myself go... to see and feel that flash of white that completely blinded all my senses and rationale; all I could feel was your heavy body and beating heart that crushed against mine.

Your lips kissed me... again and again... as your hands searched for mine and held them tightly. You were telling me with your entire body that you weren't going to leave... you weren't going to go... and for the first time in a long while, I lied to myself to believe you once again.

_Please don't let this hand go..._

_~ Fall ~_

I was sprawled out on the grass with the cool breeze lifting the leaves on the ground. The sun was warm but the weather was cold. It wasn't a day to be spent outdoors... not with the paperwork left to do that I will never attend to... but the coolness of the outdoors made everything else feel so much warmer in comparison; I longed for that warmth, even if it was the sweetness of water against the pure taste of salt... I still craved for it.

I watched the sun rise... I watched the sun set... I watched the colours that bled into the sky...from darkness into light, and light into darkness... an endless cycle that will never fall out of pattern.

When the sun fell beyond the horizon, the reds and pinks and purples no longer in the sky... I stood up on the grassy meadow... stared at the bright stars that shone above me... and I could feel the robes lift against me with the wind. A bell tinkered... hidden behind the folds of my robes yet still it revealed itself; it fell onto the grass as it freed itself from me when I stood.

_... I'll return..._

I picked the charm up from the ground, heard it tinker loudly as it dangled from my hands, and I searched for a nearby tree to string it up. It didn't take long for me to find one... a tree with partly fallen leaves, dressed in shades of reds, oranges, and browns from the changing seasons... and I stared desperately at the charm as it tinkered loudly with the wind. I waited and waited, but not surprisingly, nothing happened. It was silent apart from the rustling leaves on the grassy meadow and the sound of any remaining hope crushing and piecing itself back together again repeatedly like the cycle of day and night that goes on for all of eternity.

I turned my back against it, prepared to leave it behind. I took two steps forwards, but three back as my heart filled with an even greater emptiness that I wasn't sure I could live with. I took the charm off from the tree, tucked it safely into the sash that wrapped against my waist, and returned back to quarters before I had enough time to become sane like I never was.

_~ Winter ~_

The blood on my hands felt warm, _too _warm, yet the world around us was as cold and silent as ice. I couldn't hear or feel any of the sounds nor presences around us... all I could feel was the lingering warmth that remained in this heavy body... the pitiful looking smile that looked more warm than anything I had ever seen again...

I couldn't sob. It felt like needles piercing through my flesh and rough jagged edges through my heart... The pain was too heavy for me to utter a single cry.

_It's going to be okay... we're going to patch you up and you'll be all new again..._

I couldn't even lie to myself despite all the years of lying and hoping and _believing_, all in futile... Despite all of those wasted years of experience, I couldn't even lie to myself when it mattered the most.

"Your hand... is warm..."

I closed my eyes tightly. Your body felt heavier and heavier with each breath you took, and I wondered how much longer I could hold on before I fall with you.

Your hand reached for a place, that place on my sash that I could feel pressed against my waist with the muffled tinkering hidden so safely away, so quietly sounding that I wondered how on Earth you even knew it was there, but you would always know. You knew everything... and I was afraid I knew you better than I thought as I braced myself for your next words.

"Didn't... I tell... you...?"

I swallowed hard, and I wanted to tell you not to speak, not with such a weak voice that even I could barely recognize, but I had no strength to say such words. I felt like a weak coward who couldn't lift up their blade even against the most pathetic of all enemies... I wanted to cower and bury myself away so that I wouldn't have to deal with this... so that I could continue dreaming and hoping and _praying_ for something akin to a happily ever after and not this forever never to be.

"... I returned..."

The bottled shattered and the choking sobs rendered me completely helpless as I watched you slip away in my arms... with that childlike smile that warmed your face... leaving me with nothing to ease the tightening in my chest... the throbbing of my heart... and the crushing pain of a promise kept that was better left in the shadows of the past.


End file.
